InkSpired Magazine Issue No. 45 | Page 71

On August 10th, 2015, Lin’s mother, Rita Langworthy was gunned down while watching eight unrelated children. A lone gunman approached the home and opened fire. It was a senseless crime and the community lost one of its most loved educators. Rita was a retired principal in Flint, Michigan. In her retirement, she still made it her mission to tutor and help underprivileged kids, believing every child deserves a chance, even paying out of her own pocket to put those she could into private school. The loss of her mother was a huge blow to Lin. She was not a stranger to loss or hard times, but this was a true test of her will. The thought that her mother was gone was unimaginable, the crime unsolved, senseless, and brutal was tormenting, but being her mother’s daughter, Lin did not succumb to letting tragedy take her down. Instead, she poured herself into bringing her mother’s dream alive. A matter of weeks after her death, Lin created The Rita Langworthy Foundation (RLF), a nonprofit in memory of her mother that provided funds for educators and underprivileged children. Lin shared her mother’s passion for the underdog, being a former educator herself, working as a teacher in an alternative high school in Flint. She was going to take her mother’s dream and make it real. And she did. Rita Langworthy had faith and her daughter, Hope. Not being one to indulge in feeling helpless, having her hands tied and wallowing in it, Lin got to work. Putting the foundation together, materializing her mother’s dream became a 24/7 priority. She spent days and nights filling out paperwork, submitting documents, assembling a board, and writing. Everything fell into place. There wasn’t a struggle, and while it can take years to get a nonprofit made legitimate and have the IRS sign off, it was done within a month. Lin, used to bumps in the road working with nonprofits before, couldn’t believe it. It was meant to be. When asked how she did it, how she maintained composure, and didn’t fall into the depths of depression, she told said it wasn’t easy. There were definitely bad days, horrible days. Days that she stayed in, cancelled seeing friends, and just sat with her feelings. She dealt with it, which Lin claims is the key to getting one’s self through something completely horrible. “You have to let yourself feel,” Lin said. She explained that too many times, people feel like they have to put on the fake smile, say they’re fine, and push away feeling awful. “Doing that only prolongs the grief,” she explained. The best advice she got was from a friend who told her that she could deal with it now or deal with it later, and dealing with it later would only make it worse. So Lin confronted it, letting herself go through the process. Her advice on getting through tragedy? Learn how to feel, let yourself feel, be honest with yourself that it sucks, and even though life sucks at that time, be able to find happiness. She mentioned that doing the fake, “I’m okay” only made it worse and when people asked her about it, she would be honest. She’d tell them she felt like shit, that the situation sucked, and she was getting through it. She found the empty, “I’m sorry” to be worse than no response and just kept a distance from the pity party. Lin found when people were straight with her on the severity of the situation, it made it easier to deal. Between facing the situation head on, letting herself feel the emotions, and putting her all into the creation of the foundation, Lin pulled through. She explained that she could move forward and live or stay stuck and let her soul and spirit die. She chose to move forward, not letting herself get bogged down by guilt that she was doing so. “Something that many of us do is feeling like we are doing the deceased a disservice by moving on, like we’ve forgotten them, but really it’s anything but. Those we’ve lost would want us to move forward,” she explains. Lin said this was especially true with her mother. “My mother InkSpiredMagazine.com 69